The Girl Revolution 40 Days of Love

The Girl Revolution 40 Days of Love.

Our church is doing a 40 Days of Love study for Lent. The idea is to improve our marriages, our relationships in our families and also our relationship with God. Madly In Love With Me is encouraging 40 Days of Love for one’s self, where you’re encouraged to forgo self-deprecation and running yourself ragged with busyness.

I was reminded of that post I wrote about two weeks ago, Talking to Kids About Love, where I encouraged you to talk to your kids about love: what it is and how it can be appropriately expressed as a way to protect them from sexual predators, bad boyfriends, battering husbands and also just your general run-of-the-mill selfish jerk.

I’m encouraging you to join in the Love Fest with The Girl Revolution 40 Days of Love.

Spend 40 days talking to your kids about what love is (and what it isn’t) and showing them you love them.

Some ideas might include:

• Reading Disney’s Princess stories and talking to both girls and boys about what you wish those princesses had done. Perhaps expressing to your daughter that you don’t think it’s romantic to give up her voice like Ariel or fall in love with a kidnapper or abusive boyfriend like Belle.
• Talking about Twilight and explaining that girls usually don’t “pass out” from the passion of a kiss and it’s definately not romantic if her boyfriend’s “natural” instinct is to kill her. Explaining that, there’s a difference between a romance novel and real life and in real life you hope she keeps her dreams, educational goals, family attachments, and well . . .her mortal soul and doesn’t abandon them for a boy.
• Outlining exactly what kinds of touching is not appropriate from relatives, friends, and boys. Explain to her that some people are bad and unfortunately and inappropriately attracted to children. Tell her their trick: the tell little girls it’s okay to touch them because they love them. But, girls should not believe them. If they ever hear that from someone they will know that person is a liar and trying to trick them and hurt them. This goes for Grandpa, Dad, Cousin, Uncle, Friend, Mom, Grandma, Aunt, EVERYONE.
• Talking about how she’ll know if a boy is right for her: does he share the same faith, have a work ethic, write her romantic notes. There’s nothing wrong with telling girls what kind of boy you hope to see her with.
• Talking to her about self-defense and some of the ways boys tried to pressure you to sexually experiment and some of the ways she can resist.
• Asking her about love and what she hopes for her future. What boys does she think are cute and why? How do boys show girls they like them at her school?
• Talking about different kinds of relationships: parents, siblings, friends, romantic partners. How can she get better at love and how can you love her better?
• Talking about what her Love Language is. What makes her feel most loved? What makes her feel unloved? Share your experiences with her. Listen.

Who’s in?